Substance dependence has had an enormous deleterious impact on the health and well-being of Americans. Understanding the process by which persons become vulnerable to substance abuse will be necessary to more effectively prevent and treat this pervasive problem in American society. It is well-known that childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is strongly related to various manifestations of psychopathology including dissociative disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and substance abuse. However, the empirical study of this relationship is difficult because of the private, very personal, and traumatic nature of the childhood experiences associated with CSA. Current methods of screening for CSA in treatment programs for chemical dependence depend largely on the Addictions Severity Index (ASI) and are believed to be inadequate. Part of this proposed pilot investigation seeks to test the validity of the ASI for the identification of CSA by comprehensive interview methods and through the use psychometric and neuropsychological measures that are likely to indirectly detect adult manifestations of CSA experiences. An additional aim of the proposed investigation is to study prefrontal cortical functioning in eighty women, 40 blacks and 40 whites, from the treatment programs of the Meharry Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program. Forty women with reported histories of CSA will be compared to 40 women who report no history of CSA. It is hypothesized that substance-dependent women with histories of CSA will reveal more severely impaired prefrontal function than women reporting no history of CSA when matched on potential confounding variables including race, SES, age, substance abused, and length and severity of substance dependence. The Emotional Stroop Task, a modified version of the original Stroop, the Trails A and B, a Stop-Signal Test, a Negative Priming Task, and Directed Forgetting will form a battery of tests to yield a composite measure of prefrontal function. Data will be analyzed by MANOVA with Race and Sexual Abuse History as independent variables and prefrontal function as a dependent variable. The validity of the ASI is expected to reveal a significant frequency of false negatives when compared to comprehensive interview. No racial difference in the extent of CSA history or its effect on prefrontal function is expected and subjects with histories of CSA are expected to reveal relatively impaired prefrontal functioning irrespective of race.